Facebook Still Testing "Lightbox" Photo Interface, Rolling Out Soon

Facebook is still testing a new "lightbox" interface for viewing photos. The company first announced the interface last September along with other improvements to its photos service, saying it would "make these [features] available to everyone over the next month."

But so far, the lightbox interface seems to still be in random testing, as we can only access it occasionally (and randomly).

Interestingly, the lightbox we see is set up so it's covering all of Facebook's ads.

Update: A Facebook rep says it will be rolling out the lightbox design over the next several weeks, and that the final version will have an ad unit within the lightbox, the same way the Facebook blog screenshot (below) demonstrates.

Earlier: Here's Facebook's album view. Note the ads on the right.

Facebook screenshot

Here's what the "lightbox" pop-up view looks like. Note that the ads are now covered up.

Facebook screenshot

Here's what the lightbox feature looked like last September, when Facebook introduced it in a blog post. Note the small ad in the lightbox, next to the photo description. We have never seen this ad unit during any of our testing.